The Sin Beat

by Editor
June 2, 2014 at 9:39 am

https://www.smartertimes.com/1217/the-sin-beat

According to a post by a Times editor on Twitter, the newspaper has created a "sin beat," which had its debut over the weekend in an article that led the Times' Sunday metro section. The article, which is accompanied on the Times web site by a ten-photo slide show, is headlined, "A Strip Club in Manhattan Proves That Vice Is Hard To Kill." The terms of the Times' deal for access to the club are described as follows:

The New York Times was introduced to the club by its owner's lawyer and was allowed to visit under the condition that Bliss's location would not be revealed and that both its clients and those who worked there would not be identified by their full names. In conversations with patrons and workers during four visits to the club over the course of a month, the reporter identified himself as being from The Times.

Readers can judge for themselves based on the result whether that is an anonymous source deal that it was worth the Times' taking, or whether it comports with the paper's stated policies on the use of anonymous sources. The article, despite the headline, describes something that seems more like a brothel than a strip club. My own view is that the space in the newspaper and the reporter's time — "four visits to the club over the course of a month"! — would have been better devoted to other matters.

The article also leaves several questions unanswered. Readers aren't told the name of the lawyer who made this introduction.

Then there is this paragraph:

By the early-morning hours, most men have stumbled home. The women dance together to the music, in front of the bar, on top of the bar. Tony counts his cash on a landing in the stairwell, jumping whenever the door opens. He pays the floor manager, another man who keeps time outside of the rooms and the man who accepts money at the door. He pays a few people hush money. He usually goes back to the South Bronx with a wallet stuffed with cash: $2,000 or $3,000.

Is this money declared as income to the IRS? The Times doesn't mention anything about how the place deals with its taxes. And who are the "few people" who are paid "hush money"?